


bloom

by thewriterofperfectdisasters



Series: Dee's A.U.gust 2015 (booyah) [2]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Challenge: A.U.gust, Fluff, M/M, light smut??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-05
Updated: 2015-08-05
Packaged: 2018-04-13 03:28:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4505997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewriterofperfectdisasters/pseuds/thewriterofperfectdisasters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘Aw, come on!’ Mandy whined. ‘Don’t play that shit with me, Ian. You’re practically glowing.’<br/>‘I’m what?’<br/>‘You’re so in love it’s affecting your complexion and it’s disgusting how clear your skin is.’</p>
            </blockquote>





	bloom

**Author's Note:**

> somewhat of a "everyone thinks we're besties which we are but we're also dating AU", which is what this document was saved as...
> 
> title from the eponymous song by odesza (literally only called this bc i'm listening to the song as i post it)

‘So,’ Mandy said, smiling happily at her best friend as they settled onto the couch together. ‘When do I get to meet the magical boyfriend?’

Ian raised his eyebrows as he propped his feet up on the coffee table in front of them and pressed play on the movie. ‘I’ve got absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘Aw, come on!’ Mandy whined. ‘Don’t play that shit with me, Ian. You’re practically _glowing_.’

‘I’m what?’

‘You’re so in love it’s affecting your complexion and it’s disgusting how clear your skin is.’

Ian snickered and turned towards the TV screen. ‘I don’t have a boyfriend.’

‘Ian, I know –’

‘Hold that thought,’ Ian said, feeling his phone vibrating wildly in his pocket. He grinned as he saw who was calling and accepted the call. ‘Moshi moshi, Jesus desu?’

‘Jesus what who?’ Mickey said, his voice crackling slightly with the static. ‘Never mind. Where the fuck are you?’

‘Mandy’s. Why?’

‘Fuck, I’m at home, right, and I can’t find where the fuck our can opener is?’

‘Can opener?’ Ian repeated. ‘Why do you need a can opener?’

‘I don’t, I just want to know where it is,’ Mickey said sarcastically. ‘The fuck do you think I need it for, dumbass?’

‘God, calm down. Uh… maybe in with the cutlery? Maybe where the cans are?’

‘Checked and checked. Anything else?’

Ian huffed angrily and turned to Mandy. ‘Your idiot brother can’t find our can opener. If you were a can opener, where would you be?’

Mandy shrugged. ‘Junk drawer?’

‘Mands says junk drawer.’

‘Do we have one of those?’ Mickey asked, and Ian could hear his cupboards being opened and closed, and drawers being pulled out and slammed shut.

‘Yeah, under the cutlery?’

‘That’s our junk drawer?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Oh, fuck. I just thought we had a battery drawer.’

‘Nope. Is it there?’

‘No,’ Mickey made a noise of frustration. ‘Fuck! When are you coming back?’

‘Not soon enough to get you a can opener.’

‘Jesus Christ, the fuck do I keep you for?’

‘There are many ways I _could_ answer that, but I won’t,’ Ian scratched the back of his neck. ‘You could always just use a knife or something.’

‘Wow, what a great idea! No.’

‘Well, I don’t know. Solve your own fucking problems, asshole.’

‘Will do. Dick.’

Ian rolled his eyes and hung up the phone, shooting Mandy an apologetic smile. ‘Sorry.’

‘It’s fine! You chose to live with him, so really I should thank you for taking him off my hands,’ Mandy smiled. ‘It’s a shame he’s not gay, because you two should totally date.’

‘God, if I had a dollar for every time you’ve said that…’

‘Then you could probably afford to live alone and not deal with Mickey’s can opener woes?’

‘Exactly.’

 

* * *

 

‘Fuck,’ Mickey gasped, clawing at Ian’s back. ‘Fuck, _there_.’

Ian nodded against Mickey’s shoulder and redoubled his efforts to aim for that spot. ‘Fuck, you’re so hot, Mick.’

‘God, I know, right?’ Mickey said, tilting his head as Ian started sucking up a mark in the junction between his neck and shoulder. ‘Harder, come on, Gallagher!’

‘Fuck, you’re so hard to please sometimes,’ Ian muttered, biting sharply into Mickey’s skin.

‘Fuck – _oh_ – off,’ Mickey bit his lip and took one hand off Ian’s shoulders to start jerking himself off. ‘Close?’

‘Close,’ Ian agreed. ‘So good, Mick.’

Mickey laughed and clenched his muscles around Ian, drawing a low moan from the other man. ‘Come, then.’

Ian shook his head and whacked Mickey’s hand away to start stroking him instead. ‘You first.’

‘What a _gentleman_ ,’ Mickey said, letting out a low moan as he came over Ian’s hand.

Ian buried his face in Mickey’s neck as he followed, coming inside him. He rolled off his boyfriend and pulled out, before immediately curling into his side and stroking a hand over Mickey’s hip. ‘When are you gonna tell Mandy?’

‘Tell her what?’

‘That we’re not platonically sharing an apartment and you really enjoy taking it up the ass.’

‘Okay, first off, I’m not letting my sister know I take it up the ass. Secondly, it’s none of her business that I’m gay.’

‘Are you serious?’ Ian groaned. ‘Like, yeah, take your time and all, but she’s your sister! What’s she gonna do?’

‘Probably buy me a fucking dildo for my birthday.’

‘And?’

‘And that’s weird!’

Ian rolled his eyes. ‘It’s difficult for me to keep denying I have a boyfriend, Mick. I’m not saying you tell every single person you meet, like, “Hi, I’m Mickey and I like having stuff in my butt!” but you gotta tell Mandy at least. Maybe my family, too, so it actually makes sense for you to be having dinner with us every weekend.’ Ian sighed and kissed Mickey’s collarbone lightly. ‘It’s not fun having them think you’re just my best friend and platonic life partner, Mick.’

‘You know what else isn’t fun?’ Mickey asked. ‘Having drying jizz in your asscrack. Get me some fucking tissues or something.’

Ian sighed and reached over to get some tissues for Mickey. ‘Come on, Mick. Our friends know. Our _colleagues_ know, so why can’t our families?’

Mickey was quiet as he cleaned his ass as best he could without moving too much. ‘Opinions of friends and colleagues don’t matter,’ he said, tossing the used tissues over the side of the bed for Ian to deal with. ‘Family you’re stuck with.’

‘It’s not like anyone is going to disown you or anything,’ Ian said softly. ‘They all love you, Mick.’

‘Gross.’

‘What?’

‘Emotions,’ Mickey shook his head. ‘Let me think about it, yeah?’

‘You’ve had like seven years to think about it, Mick.’

‘Seven years?’

‘Mm.’

‘It’s been seven years?’

‘Since we started, yeah. Three and a bit since we moved in together.’

‘Fuck, man,’ Mickey shook his head. ‘How the hell has no one figured it out yet?’

‘I don’t know, Mick. That’s probably why we should tell them,’ Ian gave Mickey a hopeful smile. ‘Yeah?’

‘Fine, but on my terms,’ Mickey said, rolling onto his side and pulling Ian’s arm over his hip. ‘You say nothing until I do.’

‘Okay,’ Ian agreed, pulling the blankets up over them and nuzzling into Mickey. ‘But make it soon.’

‘Is it bothering you that much?’

‘I just…’ Ian sighed. ‘I think it’s kind of unreasonable. They won’t look at you any different, and I’ll finally be able to just hold your hand or whatever at a family dinner. It’s just the little things I can’t do.’

Mickey nodded slowly. ‘Okay.’

‘What?’

‘Tomorrow at dinner, we’ll tell them,’ Mickey said softly. ‘I kinda miss touching you, too.’

Ian smiled into Mickey’s shoulder. ‘Don’t feel the urge to make up for all the lost time and get me to start fucking you on the dining table.’

Mickey rolled his eyes. ‘I’ll do my best.’

 

* * *

 

Mickey was nervous as fuck. Of course he was. He had told Ian that they – that _he_ – would come out to the Gallaghers tonight, and now he was starting to regret it. After seven years, he should know that Ian could get him to agree to the most ridiculous things after sex. It would hurt Mickey to hurt Ian, should he decide to back out.

He did, however, know Ian wouldn’t be mad, just disappointed. As a general rule, having Ian disappointed in him was worse than having Ian be mad at him. At least when Ian was mad, there was still sex involved. (Angry make up sex was one of Mickey’s favourite types of sex. It closely followed _“We’ve been apart for three days and have time to make up for”_ sex, after one of them would come back from an excursion with work, and _“It’s Saturday morning and we have no plans so let’s make this last as long as we can”_ sex, where there was lots of gentle thrusting, kissing, and _“I love you”_ s involved.)

As he and Ian pulled up to the house, Mickey steeled himself for the storm of questions that would inevitably follow with their revelation.

‘You don’t have to do this, Mick,’ Ian said, picking up on his nervousness. ‘If you’re not ready, I don’t want to push you, and I’m sorry if it came across that way.’

‘It’s fine, I guess it’s not fair on you to keep this from your family anymore. I know how important they are to you,’ Mickey sighed and scratched the back of his neck. ‘And I suppose since everyone else we know already knows…’

Ian grinned and kissed him quickly. ‘I honest to God thought you were going to pull out for a second there.’

‘So did I,’ Mickey muttered, unbuckling his seatbelt and getting out of the car, going around to join Ian. He stuck his hand out and waited for Ian to grab it, albeit with a questioning look on his face. ‘If we’re doing this, we’re gonna fuckin’ do it, Gallagher.’

The confusion was quickly replaced with the wide grin Mickey was more accustomed to seeing on his boyfriend’s face. (He might’ve momentarily been struck by how wonderful and supportive (and fucking _hot_ ) Ian was, but that was no one’s business but his own.)

As they walked up the steps to the Gallagher house, hand in hand, Ian rubbing small circles into Mickey’s knuckle with his thumb, Mickey felt like he might be having heart palpitations. And there was no doubt in his mind that if he fell or some stupid shit like that, that Ian would catch him.

They didn’t bother knocking on the door before they entered the house, and were greeted with a cacophony of noise, mostly up of varying screams at Fiona to announce their arrival.

‘Oh, hey,’ Lip said, coming down from upstairs. He took one look at their hands, slid his gaze back up to their faces, before grinning triumphantly. ‘ _Fi!_ ’ he yelled, heading towards the kitchen. ‘You owe me a twenty!’

‘What?’ Fiona called back, coming out of the kitchen and catching sight of Ian and Mickey, who were still standing, seemingly shocked, beside the staircase. ‘Oh, for God’s sake!’

‘What the fuck is happening right now?’ Mickey muttered to Ian, letting go of his hand temporarily, to remove his coat and go find himself a beer.

‘I have no idea,’ Ian replied, following Mickey to the kitchen and watching Fiona rummage around a pocket of her coat for the money she owed Lip, for some reason. ‘Fi, the hell is going on?’

‘They had bets,’ Debbie filled in, looking up from her homework on the table. ‘Fiona said you’d come out at Christmas. Lip said it would be randomly throughout the year.’

Ian and Mickey looked askance at each other. ‘Wait, so you know?’ Ian asked.

‘That you and Mickey are together?’ Debbie rolled her eyes. ‘Duh.’

‘How?’

‘You have a two bedroom apartment with one bed,’ Debbie deadpanned, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Which it kinda was, now that they looked back on it.

‘Well, fuck,’ Mickey muttered, downing a good portion of his beer at once. He needed to be slightly tipsier to get through this conversation.

‘Was there anything else that gave it away?’ Ian asked, leaning against the bench and watching Mickey in amusement, as his boyfriend attempted to give himself some sort of alcohol poisoning.

Fiona stopped rummaging around for the money to pay her lost bet and turned to face them, hands on her hips. ‘You kinda just…’ she waved her hand between them, searching for the words. ‘You complement each other.’

‘Excuse me?’ Mickey asked, surfacing from his inhalation of beer long enough to form the words.

‘Not _literally_ ,’ Fiona said, giving up on her coat for the moment, and going back to the stove. ‘It’s like, when one of you moves, the other does the same. You’re like a planet and a satellite or something. You orbit each other and follow the other’s moves.’

‘I am eighty percent sure that’s from _Twilight_ ,’ Ian mused.

‘Shut up,’ Fiona blushed. ‘You guys just always seem to know what the other’s thinking and what they want or need. You fill each other’s plates with food and never complain about what you’ve been given. You share drinks, and you look at each other like they’re the sun and you’ve been living in a cave your whole life.’

Ian huffed a laugh. ‘Is it that obvious?’

‘Yeah,’ Fiona nodded. ‘So you can stop pretending like you’re _platonically_ living together, and just fucking hold hands or whatever.’

‘We just thought you were really not into PDA,’ Debbie added. ‘It would make sense.’

‘To be fair, we’re not really,’ Ian muttered.

‘Well, now you don’t have to worry if that changes,’ Debbie smiled.

Ian nodded and gave Mickey a satisfied, _“I told you so!”_  look. ‘Thanks, Debs.’

 

* * *

 

Now that the Gallaghers knew, or rather, had had their theories confirmed and paid out their lost bets, Ian and Mickey were faced with the task of telling Mandy.

They hadn’t even really discussed how they were going to go about _that_ one, when they were interrupted, mid-sex, by said Milkovich sister. Of course, they didn’t know who it was, so Ian got up, pulled some random pants on off the floor, and ran to answer the insistent knocking at the door.

Ian had prepared his speech about having already accepted Satan as his lord and saviour, when he opened the door to find Mandy there. ‘Oh, shit, you’re not Jesus,’ he said, somehow getting his words mixed with his theory about Jehovah’s Witnesses.

‘Well spotted,’ Mandy replied, raising an eyebrow. ‘Busy?’ she asked, looking him up and down slowly, taking in his dishevelled appearance and shirtless chest. ‘I feel like I’m interrupting something.’

‘Uhh…’

‘Jesus Christ, Ian!’ Mickey yelled from the bedroom. ‘Tell them to fuck off!’

‘Is that my brother?’ Mandy said, side stepping Ian and entering the apartment. ‘Mick?’

There was no word from the bedroom for a few moments. ‘…No.’

Mandy narrowed her eyes and dumped her crap on the couch, before making her way into the bedroom. ‘Mickey?’

Ian cringed and followed Mandy into the bedroom, where he found her turned around and facing the door, instead of her brother naked in bed. ‘Uhh… we can explain,’ Ian said lamely, glaring at Mickey to pull some pants on, for _God’s_ sake.

‘I think I can summarise,’ Mandy said, not taking a bar of it. ‘You and my brother are together, have been for a _while_ , and didn’t think I would like to know.’

‘I _didn’t_ want you to know,’ Mickey said, finally getting some damn clothing on.

‘I’m pretty fucking hurt I’m the last to know,’ Mandy replied. ‘I had my suspicions, and you didn’t think to confirm them? Jesus, Mick. You know I’m okay with whatever you choose to do. _Whoever._ ’

Mickey sighed and looked to Ian for help. ‘Mands, we just didn’t know how you’d react,’ Ian began. ‘I’m your best friend and I’m fucking your brother, so…’

‘I just wish you had _told_ me,’ Mandy said, sighing exasperatedly. ‘I don’t give two shits who you choose to fuck, and you should know that.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ Mickey said. ‘’m sorry.’

Mandy turned back around and her angry expression softened when she saw his sincerity. ‘It’s okay. I get it. I just wish it hadn’t taken this long.’

‘I know,’ Mickey nodded.

‘Why are you here, though?’ Ian asked, realising that she must’ve come over for a reason.

‘Oh,’ Mandy grinned and went out to the living area, to pull something out of her bag. She tossed it to her brother, who, along with Ian, had followed her out of the bedroom. ‘I got you that.’

‘A can opener?’ Mickey asked, raising an eyebrow.

‘Yeah, I wasn’t sure if you’d found yours or not, but I figured you can never have too many can openers, right?’

Mickey laughed and passed it to Ian, who went to go put it in the appropriate drawer in their kitchen. ‘Thanks.’

Mandy grinned and stepped forward to hug her brother. ‘You know I still love you, no matter what you like doing with your dick, yeah?’

‘Yeah,’ Mickey huffed, blowing her hair out of his face. ‘I just didn’t know how to tell you.’

‘I know,’ Mandy nodded. ‘Mick?’

‘Mm?’

‘Why do you smell like chocolate sauce?’

Ian snorted unattractively from the doorway to the kitchen. ‘Probably best if you don’t know.’

Mandy scrunched her nose and let go of Mickey. ‘I’m gonna go.’

‘Good idea,’ Mickey grinned. ‘We weren’t done.’

‘Ugh,’ Mandy shook her head and grabbed her bag. ‘Disgusting.’

‘What is?’ Ian asked, even though the answer should’ve been obvious.

‘You’re _glowing_ again. Also, that as soon as I leave, you’re gonna be going back to your chocolatey ass reaming.’

‘Yep,’ Mickey confirmed.

‘Okay,’ Mandy threw up her hands and showed herself to the door. ‘I’m out!’

‘Bye, Mandy!’ they chimed, as the door shut behind her.

‘Well,’ Ian said thoughtfully. ‘I guess everyone knows now. Feel better?’

‘I’ll feel better once we get back to our “chocolatey ass reaming”,’ Mickey shrugged.

Ian grinned. ‘I’ll go get the sauce back.’

‘Meet you in bed,’ Mickey winked, slipping off his track pants, as he made his way back to the bedroom.

As he went, Ian couldn’t help but agree with Mandy. They were practically glowing with their stupid love for each other. (On the other hand, maybe it was just the streetlights outside giving Mickey an angelic glow.) (Ian laughed to himself at that thought.)


End file.
